An Empirical Study Of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety For Chinese EFL Learners

English reading ability, as one of the most important foreign language abilities, has drawn much attention in EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching. Many studies have shown that anxiety has a great influence on foreign language learning as well as English reading. While many studies have been done on English listening, English writing and English speaking anxiety since1970s, and many studies have been done on foreign language reading anxiety at home and abroad, such as the research of Saito (1999), the research of Sellers (2000) and the research of Shi&Liu (2006), few scholars have focused on English reading anxiety in aspect of English major and non-English major comparison.Based on the anxiety theories of Horwitz et al., the author of this study adopted Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) of Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) as an instrument to carry out a research on English reading anxiety situation of EFL learners, used TOEFL reading comprehensions to test students’reading performance and used interviews to explore the reasons of foreign language reading anxiety. The research questions are:(1) What is the general situation of English reading anxiety among Chinese EFL learners?(2) What is the relationship between English reading anxiety levels and English test grades?(3) Is there any difference between the English major students and non-English major students in aspects of English reading anxiety levels and reading test grades?(4) What are the possible sources of foreign language anxiety and what measures cars? be taken to reduce students’foreign language reading anxiety?The subjects of this study are61sophomore students (31female students and30male students) from Shandong University, among whom24are English major students and37are non-English major students. The results show that both English major students and non-English major students experience foreign language reading anxiety. Besides, foreign language reading anxiety is in a negative correlation with the test grades, i.e. the higher of the foreign language reading anxiety, the lower of the test grades. There is a significant difference between English major students and non-English major students in aspect of foreign language reading anxiety and in aspect of English test grades. Besides, through the interviews, the author summarizes the main sources of foreign language reading anxiety: being unfamiliar with cultures of foreign countries, unconfident and unsatisfied with personal reading ability and fear of English reading, etc.As foreign language anxiety may influence students’reading abilities and reading grades, teachers should be aware of the influence of foreign language anxiety to students’ reading study and test grades so that effective methods and strategies may be taken to reduce foreign language reading anxiety and achieve a better result. Appropriate measures, such as boosting students’confidence, teaching more on cultures of English speaking countries, sharing more materials of different scopes, teaching reading strategies and strengthening cross-cultural awareness should be taken to help students get rid of foreign language reading anxiety during EFL teaching.